Whiskeyjack

by Victoria Goddard

  We came at last to a single brightly burning light.

  I realized I’d been leading us there unconsciously but to excellent purpose. Where else could I expect refuge in the middle of the night? Not my uncle’s, that was certain, and Ragnor Bella itself was another six miles on.

  “My friend lives here,” I said vaguely to Ben and Jack, who had walked silently along beside me the whole way. “They’ll make sure my sister is taken care of, at least.”

  It was late, but the candle-lantern at the stable-side door suggested someone was still up. Indeed, our timing was impeccable, for as I neared a familiar dark shape emerged from the other side of the shadows.

  “Mr. Dart,” I said politely.

  Mr. Dart checked, swung around wildly so that the poacher’s lantern he was carrying sent shadows and illumination danced even more wildly around us. I shut my eyes against a wash of dizzying exhaustion.

  “Mr. Greenwing. And whom do you bring to my door this fine midnight?”

  “Jack, Ben, my sister Sela.”

  “Even more adventures than I suspected are afoot. Will they keep until the morning?”

  “I sincerely hope so. Though I should inform you that you—or rather your brother—will be harbouring felons.”

  “Oh?”

  “They were arrested for loitering, I for murdering Fitzroy Angursell in the form of a dragon, and we escaped out of Yellton Gaol.”

  “That explains your last few days.”

  Sela made a murmuring noise of protest as I shifted position. Mr. Dart laughed.

  “Or no, it doesn’t? I can feel the disgruntlement radiating off you. Welcome, gentlemen, please enter. I ask merely that you respect my brother the Squire’s hospitality while you are on his premises.”

  “We can manage that, I believe,” Jack rumbled gravely.

  “We’re not entirely felonious,” added Ben.

  “Very good,” said Mr. Dart. “In that case, you should feel quite at home.”

  SELA HAD INSISTED ON sleeping with me, a fact I recalled when she started bouncing on me far too early the next morning.

  “Wake up, Jemis, it’s time to get up.”

  I wrestled my arm free of the blankets pinned by her weight. Rubbed my face; resolutely did not open my eyes. “I’m sure it’s still time to be asleep, Sela.”

  “It’s not! Wake up, Jemis, everyone’s awake!”

  I opened my eyes at that. “Really? Who’s everyone?”

  She began describing the people she’d seen crossing the yard below the bedroom window. I recognized the descriptions as various members of the Dart household: housemaids, stableboy, and finally Sir Hamish, whose presence suggested that it probably was time to get up.

  At least the Darts had the newfangled unmagical plumbing, and thus when I levered myself out of bed I could lead Sela to a quite luxurious bathroom for her morning ablutions. I had to dress her in yesterday’s clothing, of course, but someone had managed to clean and dry most of it. I always admired the efficiency of the Darts’ household staff. I was more than glad I hadn’t had to do laundry between midnight and morning.

  “Is it time for breakfast now?” Sela asked hopefully when I sat her down to do her hair.

  “Hold still.” I wrestled with her fair flyaway hair—inheritance from Mr. Buchance, as our mother was a dark brunette—and finally got into into an acceptable braid. “There. Let me get myself ready.”

  “Or you’ll have a beard like Mr. Dart!”

  This struck her as exquisitely funny. She was still laughing about it when I emerged clean (and clean-shaven) and dressed in my own proper clothes. After far too many of Mr. Dart’s adventures since my return home had ended with me obliged to borrow his clothing, I had finally begun leaving a suit in my room at the Hall. It was summer-weight, but I couldn’t help that. I didn’t have enough winter-weight clothing to bestrew it across the barony.

  I felt much more that young gentleman, Mr. Jemis Greenwing (technically Lord St-Noire), once I was dressed in fawn breeches, green waistcoat, midnight coat, a cravat tied in the Subdued Mathematical, and six fresh handkerchiefs in my pocket.

  “Ready, Miss Sela?”

  “I’ve been ready for ages, Jemis. I’m so hungry I could eat a whole sheep.”

  “A whole sheep? Not a cow?”

  She giggled as I opened the door. “Cows are very, very big. I’m still very, very small.”

  “That’s true.”

  Jack was coming along the hall towards us, face more than a little troubled. Possibly that was just the effect of the beard and the eyepatch; he was clean and brushed, but had not chosen to shave. He was wearing the same style of clothes as I, but one or two rungs down in terms of quality. People seeing me had trouble believing I was on speaking terms with the nobility; people seeing him would have trouble believing him on speaking terms with the gentry. I wondered if his were as misleading as mine.

  “Good morning, Jack.”

  “Good morning,” he rumbled. “Look, lad, I must talk with you.”

  “Maybe two sheep,” Sela said, swinging my hand meaningfully.

  I smiled at Jack. “Can it wait? She didn’t have anything to eat last night, as far as I can make out,.”

  “Or a pig.”

  Jack looked dissatisfied. “Yes, but I—it’s very important, lad.”

  “I’ll gladly speak with you once I see my sister settled. Why don’t you come down with us?”

  He seemed ready to say something more, but I was being tugged along by Sela and might have been mistaken on the point. He did follow me along to the stairs and down to the breakfast parlour, where we found Master Dart, Mr. Dart, and two housemaids setting out platters of food. I was reminded that I had been too busy sparring with Myrta the Hand to eat more than a few mouthfuls of my supper. Sir Hamish was coming along into the room from the other direction with Ben behind him.

  Mr. Dart looked up. “There you are, Mr. Greenwing. And Miss Sela, how lovely to see you this morning.”

  Sela was suddenly shy. She did a minuscule curtsey and then clung to the back of my leg. I smiled apologetically at the Squire and Sir Hamish. “Thank you for your hospitality, Master Dart, Sir Hamish. I’m sorry to have arrived so importunately on your door in the middle of the night.”

  Master Dart harrumphed but did not appear displeased. Sir Hamish actually grinned. “What else are friends for? I trust the explanations will be both forthcoming and fascinating.”

  “But first breakfast, before Miss Sela quite faints.”

  This was Master Dart, who smiled so kindly at her she let go of her death grip on my leg. He gestured at the seat next to himself, and Sela climbed up eagerly when I nudged her, although her eagerness probably also had something to do with the housemaid proffering her a plate of food.

  Sir Hamish sent Ben along the table next to Mr. Dart before turning to Jack. “What an interesting face you have. I should like to paint it.”

  Jack advanced into the room, but stopped at these words. I sympathized. I found Sir Hamish’s occasional painterly regard disconcerting.

  Sir Hamish was staring at him with deep intensity, expression shifting from polite welcome to something I could not decipher. Then he started to smile.

  “I have painted it. By the Emperor, Jack, only you would manage the trick of returning from the dead twice.”

  Chapter Nine: First Draw

  —No.

  MY ATTENTION, MY WHOLE world, focused on him.

  The rueful amusement, the lopsided half-apologetic smile, the one visible eye.

  I had not inherited much of my physical appearance from my father, everyone said. I looked like my maternal grandfather instead, lean and a little short and inclined to fret when I wasn’t busy being a bottle covey and revelling in mortal danger.

  The gravelly voice, the eyepatch, the beard.

  —The hands clenching at his side.

  I wanted to sneeze but my body felt far, far away.

  My ears were roaring.

&nb
sp; Someone touched me lightly on the arm; I jumped as if shocked by static.

  “Why don’t you two go next door,” Master Dart said. It was not a question.

  His words seemed to come from very far away. I understood them, but they did not rouse any response. He tugged my arm gently. I followed passively, staring at nothing.

  The door closed behind me. Jack stood before me, face working.

  “I tried to tell you,” he said. His voice was still rumbling, but—O Lady, now it was familiar—“I couldn’t when you were telling your sister—”

  He stopped, for I’d made a gesture. I didn’t really mean for him to stop talking. I didn’t—I couldn’t—I had no way to think what I could possibly say.

  Saw the wariness in his face.

  Could not say anything.

  I could barely breathe.

  I walked forward out my silence, into his silence.

  He held still. I reached forward out of my silence, into his silence, and I embraced him.

  My head rested on his shoulder. He smelled of soap and woodsmoke and fresh air.

  After a moment his arms curled around my back.

  “YOU DID TRY TO TELL me,” I said at last, backing up so I could pull out two handkerchiefs. My father—my father!—Jack took one, wiped his face. He was careful around the eyepatch.

  “It’s almost healed,” he muttered, gesturing at it. “I didn’t lose it.”

  “Oh.”

  A thousand years ago I had wondered if it were simply a disguise, if there had been a real injury there at all.

  We stared at each other some more.

  Feeling was starting to come back to me, washing over me in great crashing waves of confusion, elation, fear, euphoria, wonder, doubt.

  He reached out and ran his hand down my face. “Jemis.”

  His fingers were callused, but his touch was very gentle. I wanted to smile; instead I sneezed.

  He laughed as I brought up the handkerchief, the sound still hoarse but echoing painfully in my memories.

  I used to dream regularly about my father miraculously not being dead after all. But every time I called his name he disappeared or transformed into something ... not him. After a year they had stopped ... and started again a month ago, after the Harvest Fair when I slew the dragon.

  O Lady.

  “I am confounded,” I said, aiming for nonchalance and failing my target abysmally. “Shall we go into the other room so you don’t have to explain twice?”

  He nodded. “Sensible.”

  “I thought you’d decided that wasn’t one of my notable traits?“

  He laughed again. “These counter-characteristics come out at times in the best of us.”

  In the breakfast parlour Sela was squirming around on her chair—in agitation about my disappearance, I presumed, until I realized she was describing to a bemused Sir Hamish how Hal and I had promised to make her a cake for her birthday.

  “The same one they were making when Jemis fought the dragon,” she concluded.

  “Your birthday isn’t for months, Sela,” I pointed out.

  “You might need to practice.”

  Ben cleared his throat. “So, er, you were serious about there being a dragon.”

  “Didn’t you hear the rumours of it as you came south?” Sir Hamish said. “It’s the most exciting thing to happen here since Jack came home last time.”

  “Jemis killed the dragon!” Sela cried proudly. “Just like in a story. Except that you didn’t have a sword or a lance or anything proper.”

  “I’ll try to remember for next time.”

  Sela described the fight gleefully but probably with very little coherence for anyone not present. We all watched as her thin face blossomed with excitement. “And finally he jumped on its head and stabbed it right in the eye and it went all over the place and finally he landed in the cakes and it was dead, just like that.”

  “What was your weapon?” Ben asked. For no particular reason the cadence reminded me of Hal and I knew who Ben must be.

  “A cake knife—it was in the middle of the cake competition at the Dartington Harvest Fair,” I added for my father’s—my father’s!—benefit. “My apologies, sir: I’ve just realized who you are. Your great-nephew Hal was my roommate at Morrowlea. He said he thought you’d be coming to Ragnor Bella.”

  “Oh!” cried Mr. Dart, jumping up so he could bow. “You’re General Prince Benneret Halioren? I am honoured, sir!”

  Sir Hamish and the Squire murmured equally welcoming, if more bemused, responses. Ben snorted. “You gave us hospitality unquestioned despite warning we were gaol-breakers.”

  “Oh, well, when it comes to Mr. Greenwing’s affairs gaol-breaking companions hardly merits a raised eyebrow,” proclaimed Mr. Dart, which did prompt several raised eyebrows from everyone else.

  “Let’s leave me aside for now,” I said.

  They all looked at me. Master Dart murmured, “Of course,” and briskly walked around the table to clasp Jack on the shoulder. “Welcome home. Will you tell us what happened?”

  “What I can,” he said bleakly, glancing at the maid bringing in another dish of toast. I could not bring myself to sit down. I went to the sideboard to prepare coffee for Jack and Ben, wishing I knew the small details of taste and preference.

  My hands shook on the silver coffee pot. It clattered against the cup. “Sorry,” I whispered, unable to be flippant, but no one seemed to hear.

  The maid went out again with a wink at me. Jack said, “The short version is that after I came home last time to find my reputation destroyed and my family situation complicated, I resolved to go to Nên Corovel to beg the Lady’s advice and support.” He smiled lopsidedly. “I got there this summer.”

  “And between?” Sir Hamish asked, sipping his coffee. His hands were trembling slightly as he set it down. This puzzled me, until I recalled that he was my father’s cousin, and he and Master Dart had been—were—by the lady, were—his close friends.

  “Ay, there’s the rub.” Jack sighed. “I was waylaid in the Forest.”

  Master Dart leaned forward. “By whom?”

  “Does it matter? Nobody I knew. One of the many gangs of people displaced by the Fall. I was unsuccessful in my efforts to escape.” He waited while the maid came back in with another pot of coffee. I was still standing by the sideboard, and she poured me some into my cup. She added the cream I liked without my asking and swished away again. She was new this past month, but I was sure I’d heard Mr. Brock mention her name ... Ellen, I thought, or Elinor. She looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t think why. She couldn’t have been much older than sixteen. Perhaps a relative of hers had been in the kingschool at the same time as me.

  “Did Jemis rescue you, too?” Sela asked suddenly.

  We all looked at her. “I’m sorry, Miss Sela?” Mr. Dart replied politely, when it appeared no one else was going to.

  “Jemis rescued me from the bad men in the Forest.”

  Jemis had not rescued his father from the bad men in the Forest. Jemis had been nearly catatonic with shock and horror and grief and rage and guilt at his father’s suicide. Jemis had eventually spent the better part of a month under daily attentions from Dominus Gleason and Doctor Imbrey, the now-dead local physicker, until finally he had been able to hide the telltale signs and been pronounced well enough to go out in public again.

  Jemis sneezed, and was brought once again into the present tense. I turned to look out the window while I blew my nose. Behind me Jack said, his voice a little odd, “This was when he was younger, Sela.”

  “How did you get away, then? You must be very brave and very strong.”

  I could hear the smile, and the regret, in his voice. “That’s not always enough, I’m afraid.”

  “What happened?”

  “The ... bad men travelled ... went further north and west, until along the coast past Ghilousette we came across some pirates on shore leave. By then they were tired of my efforts to escape. They sold
me to the pirates, and on the galley I stayed. This spring it was boarded by a ship of the Lady, who freed us ... slaves ... and I made it at last to the Lady’s door. I was surprised but pleased to find Ben there, too. It seemed wiser to come quietly to see what was toward this time, especially once he told me about that play.”

  “Where did you meet Jemis?” Mr. Dart asked quietly. I turned around to see Jack glancing away from me. Behind him the maid (who was clearly intently interested in the story; as who wouldn’t be?) glanced out the open door to the hall and, looking annoyed, went out. Jack ignored her.

  “In Yellton Gaol. We’d been taken up for loitering while looking poor. Not wishing to be press-ganged into the Rondelan navy, we took our engaging young cellmate up on his suggestion of how to break out.”

  They all looked at me again. I flushed hotly. “They put the hinges on the inside of the cell door.”

  Mr. Dart smiled. “A fact I shall try to remember if ever I find myself locked in a gaol cell somewhere. Come now, Mr. Greenwing, whatever were you doing in the Yellton Gaol?”

  “I told you,” I said, “I was arrested on charge of murdering Fitzroy Angursell while in the form of a dragon.”

  Sela giggled. This seemed the most appropriate response. Everyone one else just stared at me, arrested. (As it were.)

  “That seems very obviously contrived,” began Sir Hamish.

  I half-bowed, which seemed to amuse him. “Yes, contrived to make the most sensational gossip since—” I stopped.

  “Since Jack came back from the dead the first time,” Master Dart agreed. “While I cannot condone gaol-breaking as a regular practice—”

  “I assure you, Master Dart, I have every respect for the law possible.”

  His lips quirked. “Yes, I well believe you do, Mr. Greenwing. Oh, and good morning, your grace.”

  I glanced over at the door to see that Hal had followed the maid in. He’d already divested himself of hat and gloves, but held a small collection of letters. He smiled broadly at everyone. “You’ve been leading us a merry chase of questions, Jemis! Mrs. Etaris says I am not nearly so competent a clerk as you. I told her it was because you spent all the time you weren’t running in the library, while I was doing more useful things. Fortunately she was equally happy talking about gardens.”